BackPfizer India growth slowed down
Pfizer India growth slowed down
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Even as global drug major Pfizer Inc. is looking to slash 10% of its workforce and cut annual costs by $2 billion (Rs8,800 crore) next year, its Indian subsidiary, Pfizer Ltd, has lost three of its senior directors in the last few months.
Meanwhile, another 200 employees from its consumer health division are headed for Johnson & Johnson, the company that bought Pfizer’s global over-the-counter (OTC) business.
The three top executives— K.G. Ananthakrishnan, senior director, marketing; S. Shoibal Mukherjee, senior director, medical; and S. Ramakrishnan, senior director, regulatory affairs, left Pfizer Ltd within a span of four months last year.
Pfizer executives , who did not want to identified, said that the high-profile exits and the spin-off of the company’s OTC business will have a major impact on its overall growth.
Pfizer Ltd posted total sales of Rs662 crore during the year ended 31 November 2006. A Pfizer spokesperson said the exexecutives’ departures were for “personal" reasons .
Pfizer had taken up a number of new initiatives to streamline its marketing operations because it wanted to consolidate the product portfolio of Parke-Davis, the company it bought two years ago, as well as compensate revenue loss from the OTC business.
“The loss of experienced people in the senior management levels and also in the field force will seriously affect the implementation of these initiatives," said one industry analyst who did not want to be quoted. He added that it would not be easy to make up for the loss of revenue, estimated at around Rs120-150 crore, from just the prescription-drugs segment.
Pfizer Ltd is a 49% subsidiary of the multinational drug company.
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